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Study: Diet soda doesn't help you lose weight
- JacksonGariety 13y agoOf course it doesn't. For the same reason Subway doesn't have fresh ingredients.
- mkevac 13y agoWhy not? Isn't they fresh?
- KMag 13y agoYou're saying the body makes analogous supply and demand decisions about energy balance that Subway management makes when setting up their supply chain? Please elaborate, because this is either a deep insight beyond my understanding or else shallow and simplistic. I hope it's the former.
- JacksonGariety 13y agoIt's simplistic but not shallow. People are in general far too trusting of commercial labels like "diet" and "fresh" when they should be making healthy choices about their companies they buy from instead of the products.
- fvrghl 13y agoStudy: Marketing doesn't accurately represent product
- noobface 13y agoDrew Curtis wants his comment back
- gcatalfamo 13y agoWow, people really needed a study to finally realize it.
- eric970 13y agoEr, this whole topic can be a little misleading. I haven't found a single reputable study that claims diet soda itself causes weight gain. Rather, just as the reasoning in this article suggests, the only scientific fact they present is that the consumption of diet soda itself does not encourage weight loss. Side note: Do any brands really advertise drinking their diet soda as a method of (actual) weight loss? I can't think of any that actually present it this way. It goes on to say that substituting sugary soda for diet soda isn't enough for most people to stop gaining weight. This is probably because you're likely to substitue the calories and sugars for something else, since your body notices its getting less of something and will crave it. Yet you have things like this: "One large study found that people who drank artificially sweetened soda were more likely to experience weight gain than those who drank non-diet soda" This again is a correlation with the typical behavior of a diet soda drinker. They're not drinking diet soda because they want to lose weight. Rather, they're drinking it because they don't want to gain weight. They could have a terrible diet overall and this alone does nothing but move the problem over into, say, consuming two scoops of ice scream after dinner everyday. All because the soda they had during lunch didn't satisfy their bodily craving of refined sugars. So this is a case of correlation not being causation. These types of articles do nothing but encourage this error to propagate. Perhaps the term "diet soda" is misleading in itself, but perhaps telling people that drinking a calorie-free drink will make them gain weight is just as silly as telling people it will make them lose weight.
- v1tyaz 13y agoVery misleading. In fact, the author of this study is a behavioral neurologist, hence studying human behavior relating to diet drinks rather than diet drinks themselves. Drink as much diet soda as you like, if the rest of your diet is healthy then you're fine. This article is just typical fear-mongering against artificial sweeteners, I'm surprised it got up voted here.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- DanBC 13y ago> I'm surprised it got up voted here A disturbing number of HN readers have batshit insane viewpoints on food.
- nick2021 13y agoDiet soda isn't mean to help weight loss.. it's meant to decrease weight gain compared to non diet. Common sense.. or maybe not so much.
- redwood 13y agoI think what's misleading is not the guidance of this article: but rather the idea that calories are calories. We've been told calories are calories are calories so many times. BUT Calories are clearly not treated the same way by different people: two people can eat the same thing, and live the same lifestyle, and one will be overweight. Should we really assume that the same notion can't apply to an individual who treats themselves differently? What's the elephant in the room? Metabolism!! And whether your body wants to store weight. What you eat affects both metabolism and whether your body wants to store weight. Sure, everyone's going to be require their own unique mix. BUT the important point is that what you eat has reflexive impact on how your body uses what you eat and thus on whether you'll be overweight. So calories are not the only thing. And thus it's entirely possible that a calorie-free substance, which has impacts on metabolism and how your body decides what to store, can impact weight gain.
- eric970 13y agoI agree that calories can have different impacts on people. We all require a certain intake of calories to achieve a certain weight or build. There are a lot of different variables that make this happen, such as exercise, lifestyle, genetics, and so on. But where is the evidence that a calorie-free beverage can have an impact on your metabolism? You're eliminating the idea of calories entirely with diet soda, so I don't see how your argument stands any ground.
- jere 13y agoI agree, but prepare for massive down votes from the CICO believers.
- mzarate06 13y agoResearch has shown metabolism doesn't have the affect on weight loss as many believe it to have. Case in point, weight loss can be achieved eating 1 big meal a day vs. 6 smaller meals a day (where the latter is often hyped b/c it "revs" your metabolism). Your body adjusts. The true formula for weight loss is simple and well understood: consume less calories than your body requires. When you create a caloric deficit, you'll drop weight, certainly. Focusing on metabolism is a red herring. What's more, is that your body doesn't care how the deficit is achieved. I'm eating fast food, sweets, and consuming diet soda more often then when I was a "healthy" eater ... you wouldn't guess that I've since dropped 30 lbs. All while getting stronger, and only eating 1 - 2 meals a day. Who cares what my metabolism is, or what I'm eating? The bottom line is that I'm consuming amounts that adhere to a caloric deficit, so I'm leaning down. So for weight loss, how much you eat will always trump what you eat. Consuming more calories than your body needs will always lead to weight gain, even if they're "clean" calories that come from lean meats and veggies. I'd encourage you to read Eat Stop Eat: http://www.eatstopeat.com/ http://www.eatstopeat.com/ (warning, the site looks spammy, but you won't be dissatisfied w/the book) It's a great read on intermittent fasting that presents a lot of research that debunks metabolism and other hype factors the fitness industry relies on to complicate how simple weight loss really is.
- loginalready 13y agoAs far as I know, the US is the only country where sugar-free soda is referred to as "diet". The notion that it would help lose weight is totally new to me, I'm presuming that is because most countries outside the US would never allow it to be marketed that way.
- corresation 13y agoIt's called diet here in Canada as well. In any case, diet does not and has never meant "lose weight". If you pay any attention to what you consume, you are "on a diet".
- jdminhbg 13y ago> In any case, diet does not and has never meant "lose weight". It plainly does, whether that usage makes you happy or not: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/diet?s=t http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/diet?s=t
- corresation 13y agoOne of five possible definitions includes losing weight in no universe means that diet means "lose weight" -- you don't get to choose what Diet means on a can of soda. Diet is nothing more than the things you eat, and a "diet" can be to lose, gain, maintain weight, or simply to pay attention to what you eat for the purposes of healthy eating. A diet soda is a soda modified to reduce/eliminate sugar, which again is in no way manifestly correlated with losing weight.
- rdouble 13y agoDiet Coke is called Diet Coke in all English speaking countries.
- speeder 13y agoHere in Brazil soda is called "diet" too, yes, in english even (correct porgueuse would be "Dietético", wrong portuguese would be "Dieta")
- 13y ago
- grannyg00se 13y agoStudy: Sunblock doesn't help reverse skin cancer.
- notahacker 13y agoThe best line from the article was the opening one: "Diet soda, it turns out, may not be the panacea for weight loss that we all thought — and many of us hoped — it was." It would make a very nice lead in to an Onion article.
- area51org 13y agoIsn't the point of diet soda to reduce the amount of sugar you consume while not having to actually give up soda? Who died and said Diet Coke would make you lose weight?
- webwanderings 13y agoYou don't need a study to know that none of the Soda drinks are of any help to any humans. Humans lived without soda for very long time until someone invented Pepsis and Cokes and .... and they are not something you use to help yourself for anything. So why bother?
- KMag 13y agoYour post could be paraphrased as "It's obvious X isn't helpful because X isn't ancient and X isn't helpful. Why do people do/use X?" Please use better logic. Also, fetishizing ancient things is an impediment to progress. The long term survival of the human species in the presence of something is (weak) evidence that the thing isn't harmful, but the logical inversion isn't true. That is, the survival of the human species for a long time without something is neither a valid argument for nor against that thing's benefit.
- webwanderings 13y agoUsing or not using a so-called useless thing is not a question of human survival. Humans are consuming soda and it has been proven that it isn't HELPFUL. So the question is really about the continuous waste of time, resources and energy (in producing and consuming) versus that of the intent behind all these (time, resources and energy). Unless of course you believe that producing/consuming Soda is HELPFUL in a sense that it is helpful towards economy (someone's making and people are consuming it). In this case, I have no argument here because the intent is clear enough.
- kalleboo 13y agoSummary: Fat, unhealthy people drink diet soda. We don't know if it's correlation or causation. Lots of people have different theories, but they're all over the map. Reading articles like this in news media sources is so frustrating since they only ask questions and never answer any of them.
- vittore 13y agoFirst I though it is smart commercials from Panic and their Diet Coda